re: Lance Armstrong was part of the most complex doping scheme ever...Posted by trackfan on 10/10/12 at 12:56 pm to lsuroadie

It's unfair to lay all of cycling's doping problems at the feet of Armstrong. If you believe Tyler Hamilton, US Postal already had a doping program going before Armstrong ever joined the team. And Michele Ferrari was doping some of Europe's most famous cyclists when Armstrong was barely a teenager before he ever toook up the sport of cycling.

ProjectP2294Pittsburgh FanSouth St. Louis cityMember since May 200740338 posts

re: Lance Armstrong was part of the most complex doping scheme ever...Posted by ProjectP2294 on 10/10/12 at 1:00 pm to elprez00

quote:Give it a try, then revisit your claim that cyclists are not great athletes

My being able to ride like that or not would not change the way I define a great athlete. If the bar for being a great athlete were based on being able to do things that I can't, anyone that can hit a curveball, catch a football, or make a 3-pointer would be considered a great athlete.

re: Lance Armstrong was part of the most complex doping scheme ever...Posted by elprez00 on 10/10/12 at 1:01 pm to ProjectP2294

quote:I think being really good to great at only one facet of being an athlete doesn't really make you a great athlete.

There is a lot more to cycling than just pedaling.

When I did my first century, I trained for 6 months. That included riding, running, and gym time. I in no way consider myself to be a great athlete, but I have a true appreciation for the physical skill that it take to compete at this level in this sport. Bo Jackson, who I also consider to be a great athlete, probably wouldn't last for 5 mins in one of the training regimens for a pro cyclist.

re: Lance Armstrong was part of the most complex doping scheme ever...Posted by elprez00 on 10/10/12 at 1:05 pm to ProjectP2294

quote: If the bar for being a great athlete were based on being able to do things that I can't, anyone that can hit a curveball, catch a football, or make a 3-pointer would be considered a great athlete.

Then you're missing the point. There are maybe 100 people in the world that are able to compete regularly in competitive cycling. By compete, I mean on a level to have a chance to win regularly. I would say that's pretty extraordinary.

Not everyone that rides in the Tour are there to win. There is a lot of team strategy that goes in to riding. Guys have roles on their teams.

ProjectP2294Pittsburgh FanSouth St. Louis cityMember since May 200740338 posts

re: Lance Armstrong was part of the most complex doping scheme ever...Posted by ProjectP2294 on 10/10/12 at 1:10 pm to elprez00

quote:Then you're missing the point. There are maybe 100 people in the world that are able to compete regularly in competitive cycling.

No, I'm not missing the point. Those people are great cyclists. What they're doing isn't easy. But that alone doesn't make them great athletes.

If you read my earlier post in this thread after someone mentioned Armstrong's triathalon background (which I didn't really know about), I conceded that factoring that in, he is a great athlete, because he excelled at multiple things at an extremely high level, not just one thing.

re: Lance Armstrong was part of the most complex doping scheme ever...Posted by trackfan on 10/10/12 at 1:16 pm to lsuroadie

Last month, 1996 World Champion and 3-times Parix-Roubaix winner Johan Museeuw called on the entire peleton to end the "omerta" and for his former colleagues to do a "collective mea cupla".

quote:Doping and EPO were established in the peloton in the 1980s and 1990s, says Johan Museeuw, who has called on his former colleagues to confess their doping. The Belgian has in the past acknowledged his own doping use during his successful career.

"I am the first to admit it openly, and perhaps many people will blame me that I break the silence, but it must be: virtually everyone took doping at that time,” he told the Gazet van Antwerpen.

"We must break with the hypocrisy. The only way to come out of that murderous spiral is to break the silence, the silence that continues to haunt us.”

Everyone must confess to their part, he said. “If we do not then the borrowing into the past will continue. Only a collective mea culpa is the way to the future.”

Doping was a fact of life at that period, he said. “In the 80s and 90s everyone knew what each other was doing but never said a word about doping. Using doping was something everyone did. Eventually it became a part of your lifestyle."

But the peloton is cleaner now, he said. “Because it 'is' better, now. Never before has racing been so clean, I'm sure. But that data is completely snowed under” since many of those involved refused to tell the truth about “the things that went wrong in the past. The omerta of the past prevents cycling from now starting again with a clean slate."

Based on the confessions of guys like Jonathan Vaughters, Johan Museeuw and Tyler Hamilton and the all the behind-the scene stuff they revealing, I'm beginning to think that it's very likely that every single rider in the peleton was doping. Vaughters was just an ordinary domestique. If guys like him have to dope just to struggle to make a team, who's not doping?